One of my favorite benefits of the American Express Platinum card is the yearly $200 credit for prepaid bookings when using either Amex’s Fine Hotels and Resorts (FHR) or Hotel Collection programs. FHR can be a great experience, as it provides many elite-like benefits (to go with a higher price than what you can get booking direct): free breakfast for 2, $100+ in on-property credit to use during your stay, room upgrades, early check-in / late checkout and more.
FHR often allows you to book a hotel in three different ways: prepay, pay with points or book with a deposit and pay at the hotel. Often, all three options are available when booking in a menu that looks something like this:
You might think that either “Pay Now” or “Reserve with Deposit” would trigger the $200 credit, since both will theoretically charge your card at the time of booking.
However, assuming that will make a “ming” out of “as” and “su.”
The reason why is that, when you choose Pay at Hotel, the hotel charges you ahead of time (or doesn’t), not Amex. When you choose “Pay Now,” Amex is supposed to charge you directly and it’s that charge that triggers the $200 credit – and that’s also why the terms specify “prepaid” with no mention of advance deposit being part of the deal.
Some hotels don’t truly offer the “Pay Now” option
Why does this matter?
Well, first off, it’s important to choose the right option when booking to make sure that the credit can be applied. More importantly, there’s an increasing number of properties (primarily Hiltons) that don’t give you the “Pay Now” option at booking…only book with points or book with deposit. Even worse, some hotels that do offer Pay Now are instead charging a deposit, but you don’t know that unless you pay attention to the final booking screen.
This ended up burning a lot of people who were trying to use their credit at the end of 2024 for a booking in 2025. They saw the options at checkout and assumed that they would trigger the $200 credit…because they were paying in advance. It was only later, after the credit didn’t trigger, that they realized the mistake…and, unfortunately, the ball had dropped on 2025 and their 2024 credit was off somewhere singing Auld Lang Syne.
How to prepay for an FHR property when you can’t do it online
So what do you do when you go to book a property online and only have the option to leave a deposit? Call Amex Travel.
Reader Timo sent us a note to say that they had found themselves in exactly that situation, wanting to book a hotel that they couldn’t prepay for on the Amex Travel site. They called Amex and the rep knew exactly what to do and was able to book a prepaid reservation despite it not having the option to prepay online.
Although calling and talking to a physical Amex rep is very few people’s idea of a good time, it’s good to know that, regardless of what the website tells you, you can still prepay for the FHR hotel that you actually want.
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“So what do you do when you go to book a property online and only have the option to leave a deposit? Call Amex Travel.”
Found a typo. You misspelled “Cancel your card.”
I had a weird issue that I have yet to understand.
I booked a Waldorf using partial credit, and partial points. The idea was that I would get points back for about $111.
what ended up happening big is that they credited me $311, then ended up crediting me $111. They only took the roughly 11K points that I expected them to take to begin with.
oddly enough, I did this on 12/31/24 so I am wondering if they somehow tapped into my 2025 credit, which would suck all around because then I would not have needed to use points. Furthermore, something would still be wrong since they took the points as well.
has anyone experienced this?
I believe you can check whether the current year credit has been used in the app (and probably online too).
Finding good value hotels through this program has gotten quite hard in the last year or two for my travel patterns, so I wasn’t able to use my 2024 credit unfortunately. I’m close to assigning this feature negative value in my tracking given all the time I’ve wasted fruitlessly searching.
I assign the hotel credit exactly zero value for the same reason. That’s mostly me, because my travel doesn’t match with these types of properties. But in the cases when it might work out I spend so much time trying to use it that it just isn’t worth the effort for me. And that’s before taking into account that even if you select Pay Now you might not be safe.
On the other hand, I find it extremely easy to use the Delta Stays credits and it actually tells you on the checkout screen if the booking is eligible for the Delta Stays credit on my card. Seems like Amex could make this a lot clearer.
I recently booked one night at the Waldorf Astoria in Las Vegas through FHR. I chose “Pay Now” but noticed that the charge did not go through. I called Amex Travel and they indicated the payment would need to be made at the hotel or I could cancel the reservation and book again ( note: Rep has to cancel as online link did not work). My second attempt resulted in the same outcome. After calling Amex TravelTravel for a serving time, I was able to cancel and rebook while on the phone. Unfortunately, going this route resulted in the reservation not showing up on the Hilton app (even though I had given my loyalty# on the call) as the new confirmation# was 13 digits instead of the 10 needed to link within the app. I was able to address by calling Hilton and having them make the edits to include my loyalty# and correct the number of people staying ( 1 to 2). Frustrating experience as I have used the FHR benefit on two other occasions at the same property without any problems.
I booked the Waldorf in LV as well, just saw your reply, checked my account and realized that my card never got charged either. Also made a 2nd night booking with spouse’s Amex, same issue with that reservation. Guess I will be calling as well. Definitely seems to be an issue with this property.
Free breakfast is a myth. Gave us $30 per person credit at LXR Seattle. Pancakes, a fruit bowl, coffee and OJ per person were over $50 each. I am glad it is a Hilton property so nothing out of pocket for a Diamond member. Did get lots of points for the stay.
I’m staying there next month for my amex fhr, how did you like the hotel? any other insights about the credits? Breakfast was lame? I’m only hilton gold.
Hotel is awesome. Great service. Valet parking is pricey. We were upgraded to a corner suite with harbor view.
Another issue I found booking a couple of weeks ago is that the overall rate/night that is posted is not necessarily the credit you will get back from Amex. My nightly rate of $220 was further subdivided into a Pay Now rate of $170, and a Pay at Hotel rate of $50. The credit back was $170.
the only other issue is if you book thru Amex you do not get the loyalty points if a hotel system has a program!!!
I booked a room at Ritz Carlton this fall via Amex FHR and received Marriott points
Not true, not advertised but Hyatt, Hilton and Marriott will give you points and sometimes stay credit.
Accor and IHG will also award points on FHR bookings, but not on Hotel Collection stays. Confirmed recently at a Fairmont and Intercontinental.
I still have to call about this. My “Pay Now” in December for a stay in Greece in May resulted in a half-night’s deposit by the hotel. I consider this their mistake, not mine, and it should absolutely result in a retroactive credit applied manually.
you can also do it on the website. Use chrome tools and insert the code that will trigger the prepayment call. Its pretty easy if you know how to inspect the api calls and just alter the call and make the payment.
The bigger issue is that ‘Pay Now’ for some hotels get charged directly by the hotel. For example, click ‘Pay Now’ for Waldorf Orlando and you get the normal language. Click ‘Pay Now’ for Universal Portofino Bay and it notes that the prepay will be charged by the hotel directly. It’s less that people are mistakenly clicking ‘Reserve with Deposit’. And more that ‘Pay Now’, which used to universally result in an FHR/Amex Travel charge, now sometimes comes direct from the hotel. Thanks for bringing awareness to this topic with your post!
Yep, also happened to me trying to do fontenblue and wynn. Fotenblue did not post so cancelled and did Wynn. Also did not post. Both billed directly by hotel. Tim and the crew, you need to press Amex about this. big flyertalk thread on this issue:
https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/american-express-membership-rewards/2182122-amex-200-hotel-credit-fhr-thc-2025-a-2.html
I tried contacting amex and said it does not qualify and could not find any that did when I wanted to travel. That is a load of crap and extremely misleading by amex.
Thanks for pointing this out. So, if I go to book one of these, I’ll know before I finish the transaction?
Yes. If you click ‘Pay Now’ just look at the language. If it says “…will be charged to your card by the hotel.” then it won’t trigger the credit. Others have reported calling or chatting and booking them so the charge comes from FHR. You can see the difference I’m referencing by doing a pretend ‘Pay Now’ booking at Universal Portofino Bay Orlando and comparing it to a pretend ‘Pay Now’ booking at Waldorf Orlando.